F&L: Chapter 48

My Summer began with a visit to Gringotts, where my Accounts Manager, Rotwile, congratulated me on such a useful and novel innovation. Then he almost immediately buried me in licensing paperwork. Apparently, I needed to sign off on various license agreements personally for them to be considered binding. Likely, it was a quirk of the Magical Patent Office's, because every paper that Rotwile put in front of me had the Ministry Seal notarized on it. That didn't mean that I didn't read everything before signing it. That was just good sense, after all, and Rotwile seemingly agreed with me.

"Not many Wizards would take the time to read through the license agreements carefully. They see the seal of your ministry and believe that is all it takes for things to be present and correct." Huffed Rotwile.

"I am not most Wizards." I responded.

"Clearly. You seem to approach business with an almost Goblin-like intensity. This is good, it bodes well for future dealings." Nodded Rotwile.

"Speaking of business, how are those Muggle Stocks I asked you to look into doing?" I questioned.

"The Microsoft ones?" Queried Rotwile.

"Yes. I would like to know if my visions were on target or not. It has been some months, surely there has been some news?" I asked.

"Your stock is up sixty-six percent from what it had been when you instructed us to buy it." Informed Rotwile.

"Excellent, it seems that my vision was at least on track." I smirked. Mind you, I knew it would be given previous experience in my Old Life. Rotwile didn't know that, though, so I had to play up the Seer Angle.

"So it would seem. However, we have a saying in the Goblin Nation. A blade is only finished once it is sharpened." Remarked Rotwile.

"Meaning that I should not get excited until I have time to see the long-term effects, I suppose." I mused.

"Just so." Agreed Rotwile.

Signing the Ministry Forms took several hours, and by the time I was able to return home, all I wanted was to relax. I spent some time with the Guitar and Music Books that I received as Yule Presents from Tracey and Hannah, just trying to learn the basics. That took most of the rest of the day and I went to sleep that evening feeling like I was on my way to picking up basic guitar-playing. I'd eventually be able to integrate it into some of the Bardic Magic that Magnus Gamp was teaching me, though that was a ways off. After all, it wasn't like he was teaching me the Spell to Bolster Courage or anything before at least third year.

When I woke the next morning, I was thrust into cooking lessons with Lucia. I had asked her to teach me and it was a request that Lucia apparently took fairly seriously. Fortunately for me, it turned out that my Elderly House Elf was an incredibly good teacher. She was quite patient with me as well. That was good because I had no idea what I was doing in the kitchen to start with. She started me with something that she felt was easy, a Frittata. She walked me through chopping onions first.

"Now, Signore, remember to be mindful of your fingers when chopping the onions. Lucia knows that Children can sometimes be clumsy, especially growing boys like Signore." Spoke up Lucia as she supervised.

"Right, what technique would you suggest?" I questioned.

"Lucia often starts by chopping off the stems, Signore. Once Signore has done that, Lucia will direct him on what to do next." Answered Lucia.

So I did that, and then Lucia had me cut the Onions in half from the root to the tip before peeling the outer layers off. Once that was done, I was told to make parallel slices through the onion half, stopping just before the root, before being directed to cut perpendicular slices to the first set, creating a grid. After that, the goal was to just chop through, creating smaller grid squares with each set of chops until I had the desired level of choppage. Lucia supervised me the whole time, nodding once I had finished.

"That is good, Signore. Come, Lucia will show you what to do next." Informed Lucia.

"Are you sure? I wasn't very quick with chopping." I queried.

"Speed comes from practice, Signore. Signore will pick it up with time. Lucia has to show you how to work the stove now." Confirmed Lucia.

In this manner, Lucia walked me through all the steps for making a breakfast frittata, not just chopping the onions, but cutting the pancetta, sauteeing the onions, beating the eggs, grating the cheese, and cooking it all. Apparently, the trick was not to leave it on the heat for more than twenty minutes or it would get too crunchy. My first attempt was serviceable, it was a bit crispier than it would have to be to be considered good, but that was largely down to Lucia's supervision. She really knew her stuff, but then, I supposed she would have to as a house elf. Once breakfast and the cooking lesson were over, I also got a crash course in kitchen cleanup.

"If Signore is going to be using the Kitchen, Lucia should show him how to clean up after cooking as well." Insisted Lucia.

"Couldn't I just use Scourgify?" I asked.

"Only if Signore wishes to be tasting the magic the next time he uses that pan. Lucia would not wish for such a thing to spoil the taste of the next meal made for Signore. Perhaps Signore might find a spell to allow a brush to scrub the pan by itself? Such a less direct application of magic would not ruin the next meal Signore makes with this pan." Explained Lucia.

I could only nod at that and begin the washing up. It was boring, but I supposed it taught me something about work ethic. That didn't mean that once I'd finished washing up, I didn't head straight to the Manor's Library to look up a spell like what Lucia suggested. House Elves tended to cheat such things, as their magic lent itself toward the sort of telekinesis that could allow them to scrub multiple pans at once. I did find something similar and had to let out a guffaw when I did.

I found it in a book from nineteen-seventy-three called Useful Animations for Automatic Articles by Belinda Burbage. Whoever Belinda Burbage was, she must have seen the Disney Version of The Sword in the Stone, because the Cleaning Tool Animation Spell, or Purgatio Motus, was in the same section as the Packing Spell, which used the incantation Prestidigitonium. Flipping through the pages, I also saw a much more advanced spell to temporarily animate a statue or suit of armor, which she called the Substitutionary Locomotion Spell, though I wasn't going to try casting that.

"Heh, someone's a fan of Muggle Disney Movies, I see." I grinned.

Honestly, it made sense to me. At the very least, it was something Dumbledore might have done back in the day. I set about learning both Prestidigitonium and Purgatio Motus, getting them both down before dinner time. I made a mental note to look up Belinda Burbage after dinner, which Lucia cooked herself, since I wasn't exactly up the the challenge of cooking dinner just yet.

Lucia had cooked up a storm while I'd been working. Busiati with Pesto Trapanese, Arancini, and Zepole for dessert! I had no idea what I'd done to deserve such an amazing dinner, but I was glad to have it. I dug into it all with a gusto unseen by my friends at Hogwarts. I mean, I liked the stuff they served there fine, but they didn't make the sorts of stuff I was used to in either life. Having a Sicilian Mother in both my life as Blaise and my Old Life on Normal Earth meant that I was suffering from Pasta Withdrawal after all the British fare that tended to get served at Hogwarts. Lucia seemed happy, at least.

Once I was finished with Dinner, I returned to the Manor Library after stopping off at the Workshop to cast the Metamorphic Stabilization Charm on the Metamorphing Mandragora to ensure it didn't change into something that would wreck up my workshop and would stay in the form of a Baltic Fern Flower for now. Once that was done, I went to look up Belinda Burbage. I wasn't sure that the Manor Library would have anything on her, but I decided to look through the Histories of Voldemort's War that we had.

I had a sneaking suspicion she would have been targeted by the Death Eaters. The Burbage Family were purebloods, but Belinda seemed to be someone who would have been targeted as a Muggle-Lover by the Death Eaters. Given how I knew the Muggle Studies Elective in Third Year would be taught by a Professor named Charity Burbage thanks to my Metaknowledge, I was willing to bet that sort of attitude ran in the family. Likely Professor Burbage was a cousin or some such of Belinda Burbage. Those attitudes would certainly put a target on their backs.

Indeed, as I flipped through the Histories of Voldemort's War, I came across the name of a minor battle between Death Eaters and a Single Witch, Belinda Burbage. Apparently, the Battle of the Cotswold Cottage, as it was known, had started as a sneak attack on Belinda Burbage while she slept in her Summer Cottage in the Cotswolds, and turned into an actual battle when the Death Eaters began being attacked by Animated Topiaries and Statues from Belinda's Garden. Unfortunately, Belinda didn't survive the battle, being struck by an Emaciation Curse from Antonin Dolohov, though she took down a number of Death Eaters in the process between her own spell work and her animated Garden Features.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed to know just how many Death Eaters she killed thanks to the nature of the Death Eaters at the time. One account said six, but another only said three. Unfortunately, the Death Eaters tended to recover their dead and wounded at the end of battles during the Early and Middle Phases of Voldemort's War, making counting enemy casualties impossible. Technically, there are still Death Eaters unaccounted for thanks to that. It was a method of enforced confusion that Voldemort had his forces adhere to in order to constantly keep the Ministry, and later the Order of the Pheonix, on their toes. One that had fallen by the wayside during the Late War, as Voldemort became increasingly unhinged and irrational.

"At least you took some of the bastards down with you." I murmured to the empty library.

Regardless, I spent the rest of the evening working on my Occlumency. Given how my Sight and Fortuna had both hinted that Lockhart was going to be an actual problem next year instead of a fake villain and that he seemingly had some amount of Dark Mental Control Spells, I wanted to ensure that my Occlumency was up to snuff as a priority. The goal for the summer was that four out of five evenings in the week would be devoted solely to Occlumency Training, while the other three evenings I would work the rest of the Mind Arts.

Once I had finished with my Occlumency Training, I took my Bluemoon Grass Elixir and headed to bed, hoping to get a peaceful night's sleep. . .

XXXX

That largely set the tone for much of my Summer Holidays. For the rest of May and into June, I mostly focused on learning Guitar, Cooking, New Spells from the Manor Library, and the Mind Arts, with an emphasis on Occlumency First. I had plans to head out to Wales in July to head into the Malltreath Marsh on Anglesey. I'd hunt down a Greater Water Leaper while there so I could get the Greater Toadstone needed for the Contra Probationem Debiltas Enchantment in the Craftsman's Tradition. It required one pound of crushed Greater Toadstone in the casting, but would, as I'd previously stated, render the wearer of the enchanted item protected from all debilitating but not immediately fatal effects, which included two out of three unforgivables.

Until that point, I trained. Of the spells I picked up from the Manor Library, a few stood out as useful for my upcoming excursion. Several of them had come from a book that was apparently a copy of an ancient Latin Text. The Liber Oceanus by Livius Drusus Nauta, a Wizarding Navarchus of the Roman Navy under Augustus. Apparently, the Liber Oceanus was supposed to be a Primer for any Wizarding Navarchus or Trierarchus who would seek to captain a ship in the Roman Navy. The spells inside mostly had to do with interacting with aquatic environments, which the Malltreath Marsh counted as, especially the sections close enough to the Realms of the Fae to have Greater Water Leapers in them.

The First Spell I learned was the Spell of Amphibious Adaption. It had the Incantation
Accommodatio Mare and the wand movement, once I managed to adapt it from Staff Movements meant to trace a sigil in the sand along the beach where you stood, was to trace a wave shape in the air before pointing at yourself. What it did was allow you not only to breathe water as well as air but also allow you to adapt to pressures up to twenty-five fathoms below the surface of the water, plus allow you to move and see as normal down there.

The second spell I learned was the Temperature Regulation Spell, which regulated your body temperature. Useful when you have to go down into the water for twenty-five fathoms, as the heat of the sun doesn't really reach much that deep. The Incantation was Regula Calor and the Wand Motion, after adapting it from staff movements, was a rising vertical line before flicking your wand at yourself. It allowed the caster to maintain a constant, healthy, body temperature at all times and was also useful as a counter to cold-based attack spells or in non-oceanic circumstances.

One of the others was the Whirlpool Spell, with the Incantation Charybdis Vertex and the wand motions of a spiral and pointing at your target, once adapted from staff movements. It would, depending on how much power and control you had over the spell, either create a sucking vortex capable of fixing an opponent who was in the water in place or create a more powerful whirlpool that could crush that same opponent. It was also scalable with power and control further. Apparently, there were some Wizards who had been known to trap small fleets of Quadrirmes in crushing whirlpools using the spell, defeating enemy flotillas through magic without so much as exchanging a single ballista bolt or having to ram or board a single ship. I was a long way off from that, however.

There was also the Trade Winds Spell, which conjured a gust of wind powerful enough to fill the sails of a Trireme-sized ship if becalmed. The incantation for that depended on which wind you wanted to call up, though the wand motions would always be a swish and a flick in the direction you wanted the wind to blow. Apparently, it was an attempt to mimic the Stormcalling Magics that Certain Barbarian Tribes had used against the Legions to batter them with hail, rain, or snow. The Romans were always willing to adapt the technology and tactics of their enemies to suit their own needs and this was clearly an extension of that, with Livius Drusus Nauta having heard about how Campaigns into Germania would often be beset by freak storms called up by Tribal Wizards and deciding that if the German Tribes could do it, then he could try something similar to ensure Roman Ships never stayed becalmed for long if they had a Wizard aboard.

Lastly, there was the Incendiary Bolt spell, a spell that fired a blast of pointed flame, similar to how a Ballista aboard a Quinquireme would often fire flaming projectiles. It was apparently the most reliable attack spell known to the Wizards of the Roman Navy, as all ships tended to fare poorly when hit by flaming projectiles. The Incantation was Flammeum, and the wand motions were, after adapting them from staff movements, to draw your wand back like a bowstring before thrusting it forward at your target. Unfortunately, my Incendiary Bolt was a lot less Ballista Bolt and a lot more Javelin. It was better than the Arrow-Shooting Spell, but only moderately. I would need time and practice to get it to the level that would have been used by the Wizards of the Roman Navy.

Aside from those, I mostly worked on the Mind Arts. First and foremost on Occlumency, with the Dead Moment and Leglimency tied for second, followed by Oneiromancy and Psychometry tied for last place. That was when I wasn't working on Cooking and my Guitar Practice, of course. This schedule was only interrupted twice. The First Time was when I had harvested enough reagents from my Metamorphing Mandragora to take a crack at creating the Pelle Dell'armatura Salve that I would use to treat my Tebo-Hide Duster with as a prelude to making more to use on my eventual Dragonhide Duster.

This was a painstaking process, requiring me to muddle the petals of the Baltic Fern Flower before adding them to a solution of Juice from Crushed Fire Fennel Stalks, Ground Charcoal Dust, and Iron Shavings. Of course, the Muddled Baltic Fern Flower Petals had to be added last. You had to add the Fire Fennel Stalk Juice first, stir precisely twice Clockwise, add the Iron Shavings fifteen minutes later, stir twice more Clockwise, add the Ground Charcoal Dust fifteen minutes after that, stir two more times Clockwise, then add the Muddle Baltic Fern Flower fifteen minutes after that. This time, you couldn't stir and had to just let the Muddled Baltic Fern Flowers dissolve in the mix for an hour, before letting the mixture steep for six hours stirring clockwise once every hour on the hour.

Failure to do any one of these steps in exactly the manner in which they were described would lead to a failed potion. A failed potion that would have a horrific effect, no less. The Craftsman's Tradition gave examples which ranged from being cursed for a decade with bad luck, to a mist that would age you to dust, to a simple explosion that would take out anything within a thirty-foot radius of the cauldron. All of these were bad, so I had to pay attention in order to avoid them. It was a boring process, but well worth it in the end.

When I was finished, I was left with five liters of a gray, shiny, salve shot through with flecks of cobalt blue. Exactly as the craftsman's tradition described. I bottled it all, before using some on my Tebo-Hide Duster, treating it. I had to let it sit overnight, of course, but in the morning, the leather was as tough as a suit of Mail, which provided an excellent backing for the True Orichalcum Scales that I had reinforced the Duster with. It was now effectively a magical suit of plated mail that would shrug off any number of physical attacks, as well as some smaller Magical Ones. Judging by the effectiveness, though, I was willing to bet that not only would a Dragonhide Version of this Duster be practically bulletproof, but also be able to shrug off all minor magical attacks and plenty of moderate ones as well. And that was before adding the Contra Probationem Debiltas Enchantment to the mix, or any other Enchantments I planned to put on.

That was the first interruption of the first half of my Summer. The second, though, was far more personal. I had received a Letter from Daphne, inviting me to Greengrass Manor for a formal discussion. Apparently, the Elixir of Life vials I had given her had cured her Sister's Condition, and the family drinking them had effectively fixed the Greengrass Blood Curse. Lord Greengrass was impressed enough that he wanted to make a formal House Alliance.

I had a sneaking suspicion that this was code for a betrothal, or at least an attempt at getting Daphne and I to date. That wasn't great, but I couldn't afford to snub Daphne's Father. So it was that one week before I had planned to go to the Malltreath Marsh on Anglesey, I found myself once again headed for Greengrass Manor.

And this time found me far more nervous than the last. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here's the next chapter. We get the first bit of Summer for Blaise in this one. A lot of it is timeskippy, but that's just because Blaise did a bunch of training here. He also managed to get started on beefing up his Duster some more, while also ensuring it would be a decent proof of concept for his eventual Armored Dragonhide Duster. Unfortunately, he's done so much for the Greengrasses that Daphne's Father is trying to play matchmaker between him and Daphne, even though they're both still only twelve. Aristocrats gonna Aristocrat, I suppose.

That visit to Greengrass Manor will be coming up next, and we'll see how Blaise handles that sort of thing. Afterward, we'll get into the adventure to the parts of Malltreath Marsh on Anglesey that are close to Faerie in search of a Greater Water Leaper to slay for a Greater Toadstone.

Stay tuned. . .